Homework 4

     I think that appropriation is taking someone else's art or idea to make your own, different art or idea.  When creating art, it's hard to think of something that hasn't already been done.  When appropriating something you can make a deeper meaning or create an entirely different meaning of someone else's art.  Fair Use is a part of copyright that states that one can copy another's work for use of criticism, news, reporting, teaching, and research.  I think that appropriation and fair use are enemies because they mean entirely two different things.  Appropriation can be used for criticism or one of the other things listed, but mostly isn't.  It is usually used for one's own artistic purposes and to expand upon the original piece.  But that is against fair use; so therefore, they are enemies.
     After reading the articles on the Cariou and Prince case, I'm not sure that appropriation really has one definition.  I know that appropriation is changing someones work enough that it has a new meaning or can stand on its own, but who can decide that?  Everyone is going to have a different opinion on whether or not something has been changed enough to be appropriated.  This case was a perfect example of that.  I thought for awhile about who they could use to determine whether the photos were changed enough, but I couldn't think of someone.  If they use art experts, those experts all have heir own opinion on appropriation and will all give a different view on these photos.  They will give their opinion on the photos based on their prior opinion on appropriation and that isn't fair. After that I thought about using people who have no knowledge of art or appropriation, but then they wouldn't know enough to give a valid opinion.  That makes appropriation such a fuzzy, grey area.
There's no definitive way of saying whether something is appropriated or not and that is tough for art and artists.  I think that in cases such as this one, the artists that appropriated work should have a solid, in depth explanation of what their appropriation means.  I think that is what hurt Prince, is that he couldn't give an explanation.  Personally, that makes him seem guilty of copyright infringement to me.
    Personally, I am not on Prince's side.  I don't think it is fair for him to create his entire career on appropriation.  Furthermore, it doesn't seem like he has an explanation for how he appropriated the work and changed it.  It seems that he is winning there legal battles and getting away with his lack of appropriation because of his fame and money.  It seems as if he can get away with using anyone's work without changing it.  I mean, just printing out peoples Instagram posts?  Anyone can do that and I'm not sure how he appropriated them in any way.  Sure he changed the captions; but the captions seem offensive and sexist.  It seems to me he just stole their images and made money.  He needs to be held accountable and give explanations as to how he is appropriating these works.
   

Homework 3

Our generation definitely does view events through a screen rather than watching the actual event.  When people go to concerts, they would rather film the show on their phone and watch it through there rather than put their phone away and just enjoy the show.  I love going to concerts and I am guilty of this too.  I think we do this because we have the capability and we want to be able to watch it again.  The problem with this is that we don’t really appreciate or soak in the event we are watching.  It’s nice to be able to watch it again, but maybe we wouldn’t have to watch it again if we really focused on the event while it happened.  Another example is snapchat.  When we’re with friends we record and take pictures on snapchat to put on our snapchat stories.  We do this so that other people see them and see that we’re having fun.  Instead we should just be enjoying these moments with our friends, not filming them.

The author of this article made some good points.  The first I want to address is her point on “Nothing exists if it is not recorded digitally.”  This is very true to our generation.  That is why sites like Instagram and snapchat have become so popular.  We have to document everything that happens to us and post it.  A saying that has become popular today is “pics or it didn’t happen” which is why people are constantly uploading things that happen to them onto social media. 

Another point I liked was her point about how our eyes have become used to stimulating material, things that move and have bright colors.  She points out that we are bored by paintings because they aren’t moving like the phones we constantly have in our hands.  This is very true.  For example, black and white films.  Our generation does not like older films where they’re black and white because we have to have color.  We think no color is boring.  Our eyes have become so used to visually stimulating material.

Project 1

About a year ago my mom and I found ourselves in a traumatic situation.  We have been working on recovering since then and in that time I have been building strength.  Through researching strength I found that waves are the strongest force on Earth, even stronger than gravity.  Since then waves have represented strength to me and that's why I wanted to do a gif of waves.  The sunrise represents that there's always a new day and that things can get better. 

Homework 2

            The three articles on the history of the GIF by Paddy Johnson were very interesting.  I made a Tumblr about 4 years ago and that is where I first experienced gifs.  Gifs are everywhere on Tumblr and I assumed that they had been created there considering how prominent they were and how most people first saw them on Tumblr.  It was cool to learn about the history of the gif and how it started way before Tumblr.  One of the artists/group blogs that I was drawn to was Sprit Surfers.  I thought the gif that was like a creepy ghoul was interesting so I clicked on the blog.  But once I was on it I was very surprised and my interest vanished.  It was mostly nude people, and once I got to the gif of all the monkeys and sperm, I left the page.  I’m more into the type of gif’s that are on Tumblr.

            Again, I was surprised by the age of the gif when I read The History of Gif’s on Mashable.  The said that the gif is 25 years old which is crazy to me because it seems like something that just came about in the past 5-10 years.  I definitely think that the gif is a uniquely millennial thing because it was really brought into mainstream by teenagers.  Teenagers and young adults used Tumblr to really make the gif skyrocket and after that is when the gif came to be well known.  A lot of adults today still don’t know the meaning of gif; I have had to explain it to my mom many times.  But almost every millennial knows what the gif is.  Although they are very millennial, they are still used by those outside the age bracket. 

            As said in the Mashable article, gif’s became successful because videos are so long and take a while to buffer.  I think gif’s have become popular because you can get meaning from them, despite how short they are.  They can be funny or serious and get a message across quickly.  We live in such a fast paced world that people don’t have time to sit down and watch long videos.  Personally, if a video on Facebook or YouTube is over 2-3 minutes, I won’t watch it.  But everyone has time to watch a short gif.  The gif has kept up with and adapted with our fast paced world.  With that being said, I think it’s ridiculous for gif’s to be sold for $16,000.  They are a form of art, but I personally don’t think they’re worth as much as paintings, etc.  I think that it takes skill to be able to create animations and gif’s and those are worth money.  But if someone is just ripping a video from the internet and making a gif, I don’t think that takes much skill and should not cost anything.  Being able to rip videos and make gifs so easily has democratized art because that is so easy if one has the programs for that.  A gif becomes art when it is one of a kind and the creator creates every aspect of it (animations).